It seems that the life of a famous writer should be illuminated with the accuracy of an x-ray by researchers of his work. But this is only a superficial opinion, which we regret to part with, as soon as you begin to study the available materials. A solid list of published works, plays, film screenings; government awards, prizes, a lot of community work - and minimal information about the life of a person who created a whole gallery of vivid characters and described the epoch-making events he witnessed. His real name is Sergeyev. The pseudonym Lavrenev (Boris Andreevich took it due to the fact that there was already Sergeyev in the literature) became the official name of the writer in 1922. Under this name he entered the history of Soviet and Russian literature.
Parents: not proletarian at all
The parents of the future writer were school teachers. Although the life of each of them could have been completely different.
Mom, Maria Ksaverievna, came from a well-known family of Cossacks Esaulovs, whose ancestors served under the leadership of Suvorov and Potemkin. The writer's grandmother was a wealthy heiress, whose hands many sought. But she married unsuccessfully. Lieutenant Xavier Tsekhanovich, a participant in the Crimean War, became her chosen one. In just two years, he skipped his wife’s inheritance and fled, leaving her with her little daughter in her arms - this is how Lavrenev described family misfortunes. Boris Andreyevich knew the history of his ancestors well. Despite the plight, the grandmother tried to give her daughter a good education. After completing her studies at the Poltava Institute of Noble Maidens, Mashenka went to teach in a small town Borislav.
The story of the writer’s father, Andrei Filippovich Sergeev, is exactly the opposite - nothing is known about his family. Parents were killed in a robbery on the road from Kherson to Nikolaev. Who they were remains unclear. Three children who were found in a sleigh covered with a sheepskin sheepskin coat were taken by a certain Sergeyev, an official of Kherson customs. The man is not rich, nevertheless, he was able to bring them to people. Andrei, the father of the writer, became a teacher. In the year his son was born, he worked as an assistant director in an orphanage. So Lavrenev recalled his family. Boris, whose birth date came on July 17, 1891, was born in Kherson - a beautiful, park-like city on the high right bank of the Dnieper.
Childhood: sea, books, theater
Fist fights, bruises, scratches and abrasions - childhood passed among the children who lived in an orphanage where his father served. But there were other impressions in his life. And the first one is the sea. It opened in front of a five-year-old boy from the height of the Baydarsky Pass - powerful, bewitching, vast. In adulthood, when the surname Lavrenev will already be well known to the general reader’s circle, Boris will often turn to the marine theme. “Song of the Black Sea” (1943), dedicated to the defenders of Sevastopol, and “For those at sea” (1945), which tells about sailors from torpedo boats, perhaps the source of these works should be sought in the enthusiastic eyes of little Bori, who first saw the bottomless Black Sea blue.
The boy met the world of great literature thanks to his godfather, Mikhail Evgenievich Becker. He was the mayor of Kherson - a retired gunner and colleague of L.N. Tolstoy in the Sevastopol period. With his patronage, a good library was created in the city, which the young Lavrenev happily used. Boris read the collected works, which was in the library, read voraciously. His favorite subjects were stories about sea voyages, discoveries and distant lands. Geography knew by heart. By the age of 10, he could show any place on the world map with his eyes closed.
Thanks to the godfather, he could also join the theater - the mayor had his own box near the stage, and Becker allowed the boy to use it. Here Boris saw the young IM Moskvin in the play Tsar Fedor Ioannovich, V. E. Meyerhold, A. S. Kosheverov in Boris Godunov. It is safe to say that the future playwright was brought up on high examples of true theatrical art.
Gymnasium: escape to distant lands
In 1901, Boris became a gymnasium student. He did not study very well, although he possessed excellent abilities. He simply devoted all the time to the theater and books - there was not enough patience for cramming school subjects. When I went to the sixth grade, I could not pass the algebra - the annual two, re-examination and an unpleasant conversation with my father. Resentment for his failures led to an extravagant decision - to run. Boris was able to get to Odessa and get on the ship "Athos". He went ashore in Alexandria - he intended to be hired as a sailor in the crew of any ship that went to Honolulu. The adventure ended in the Italian port of Brindisi, where he got on a French ship. Two carabinieri took the teenager to the Russian consulate. Soon he was delivered to his homeland. The vicissitudes of this journey formed the basis of the story "Marina" (1923).
After the 7th grade, the schoolboy Lavrenev made an attempt to enter the Naval Cadet Corps, but his vision failed. He again returned for a school desk in his native Kherson. As a memory of this time - an old, worn photograph. Mom, dad and high school student Lavrenev. Boris kept this photo all his life as the greatest value.
Two universities: lawyer and gunner
After graduating from high school, the future writer continued his education at Moscow University. He graduated from the Faculty of Law in 1915. During this period, a literary debut took place. The poems were published by the Rodnoy Krai newspaper in 1911 and signed by the name Lavrenev. Boris (the writer was just awakening in it) painfully searched for his way in literature.
In 1914, peaceful life ended. The young lawyer was drafted into the army after graduation. The reference book was the table of artillery firing. The time spent in the war, he later called the "Higher Academy of Life." The February bourgeois coup of 1917 found him in Moscow and made him commandant of the headquarters of the revolutionary troops. As an adjutant to the commandant of Moscow, General A.N. Golitsinsky, Lavrenev was met on October 17th. The country and the usual way of life collapsed.
Life position: determining the path
After the revolution, the young officer Lavrenev for a short time adjoins the Volunteer Army, but soon returns to his native Kherson. It took him some time to comprehend the events taking place in Russia. In the spring of 1918, Boris returned to Moscow. He went to work in the People's Commissariat for Food - the Soviet government needed competent people.
In November, he saw the first parade of the Red Army in honor of the anniversary of the revolution. This event put everything in its place in the head of a bewildered person. Since there is an army, then there is a state. A month later, a red commander with the name Lavrenev appeared in the ranks of the defenders of the revolution. Boris, whose biography was interwoven for a long time with the Armed Forces of the young republic, plunged headlong into the whirlpool of hectic life.
Two hypostases: paint and writer
The further military fate of Lavrenev was typical of the red commander of the turbulent time of civil confrontation. As part of the command of the armored train stormed Kiev occupied by Petlyura. Participated in battles on the Crimean peninsula. During the defeat of the gang of the chieftain Green, he was wounded in the leg. After the hospital, I had to leave the military service. Already in the post of political worker he was sent for further service in Tashkent. He combined work in the front-line newspaper with the head of the literary department of Turkestan Truth. He moved from Central Asia to Leningrad in 1923. A year later, he was discharged. Since that time, professional literary work began.
Passion for futurism, which experienced a novice writer in previous years, has passed. The author came to literature with military experience and a wealth of observations that became the foundation of his work. He began to write actively in Central Asia. These were mainly newspaper materials. But in the same period, the novel "The Wind" and several great stories were written. In one of them, the story “Forty-first,” the writer draws a portrait of one of his colleagues in the tsarist army and does not even change his rank and surname - Govoruho-Otrok. The second story was called Star Color. In 1924 they were published in Leningrad magazines. In the same year, "Gala Peter" was published - a work created 8 years ago. But then imperial censorship did not let him go to print.
Life dedicated to people
From this time begins the most fruitful period in the writer's work. The heroes of his works are people of revolution. Chekist Orlov - the protagonist of the "Story about a simple thing" (1924). Evgeny Pavlovich Adamov - a general who sided with the people's power in The Seventh Satellite (1927). The life of honest and courageous people was described in his works by Boris Lavrenev. In 1925 he tried himself in drama - he wrote two not very successful plays: "Rebellion" and "Dagger". The next work for the theater is the play “Rift” written for the 10th anniversary of the revolution. She gained widespread fame, and for several subsequent generations of Soviet people could see her on the stages of almost all theaters of the USSR.
The Finnish company and the ensuing attack by the Nazis were met by an already established and well-known writer. Lavrenev often went to the field army as a correspondent for a naval newspaper. His front-line articles were lively and vibrant - the writer knew the heroes of his reports well. After the war, he was entrusted with leading the playwright section of the Writers' Union.
The last years of his life, B. A. Lavrenev was engaged in the translation into Russian of authors from the Central Asian republics and French playwrights. He drew a lot more. The famous writer was passionately and recklessly painting. The walls of the apartment on Serafimovich Street were hung with his paintings.
The heart of Boris Lavrenev stopped beating on January 7, 1959.